Starward
Letters to the people you cannot reach — and the real star whose light left Earth in the year of your memory. Everything it tells you is true, including the parts that hurt.
Support that stays human
Something broken, confusing, or missing? Email and a human (me) answers.
Please include
- What you did, what you expected, what happened instead
- Device and iOS version
- Screenshots if they help — but never send anything from a letter you would not want read
Contact: karolisvalatka0@gmail.com
Clear answers
Is the star real?
Yes. Starward queries SIMBAD at Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory — the same catalogue professional astronomers use — for a real star whose distance in light-years matches how long ago your memory was. The light arriving tonight genuinely left it around that year. Nobody sent it. It was already coming.
Does my letter get sent anywhere?
No, and it never will. Your letter is not transmitted, broadcast, or posted. It stays on your phone. The app says so plainly on every screen where it matters, because the alternative would be a lie told to someone grieving.
Can the dead reply?
No. There is no such feature and there never will be one. Starward will not simulate a person, generate a reply, or imply that anyone received anything.
What is "holding it up to the sky"?
An optional few minutes where the screen becomes the brightest thing you own and you point it upward. About 80% of that light really does escape the atmosphere and travel outward indefinitely — that part is simply physics. It is not a message and the app does not pretend it is one.
Why does it ask for my location?
Only to work out when your star clears the horizon where you are, at kilometre accuracy, and only once there is actually a star to report. It is never asked for at launch. If you would rather not give it, you can type the name of your nearest town instead and everything still works.
Does it work offline?
Yes. A catalogue of real stars is carried inside the app, so writing, sealing and finding your star all work on a plane, in a field, or with no signal at all. Only the telescope photograph needs a connection.
What does the Observatory add?
Writing, finding your star and holding it up are free and unlimited, always. The Observatory is for the years afterwards: every star kept, the nights each one stands highest from where you are, the full plate and catalogue record, and a printable copy of any letter. One payment. Nothing renews.
Can I get my letters out?
Always, free, whether or not you have ever paid. Export writes every letter as plain text and as JSON — readable in fifty years by anything, with or without this app. Grief technology has a graveyard of shutdowns behind it, and losing your letters would be a second loss. Export exists so that cannot happen.
Is this therapy?
No. Starward is not therapy, counselling, or medical treatment, and it is not a substitute for a person. It does not know how you are and cannot tell whether you are getting worse. If you are struggling, please talk to someone who can actually help — the app keeps a link to findahelpline.com available at all times.
Privacy policy
The short version: your letters never leave your phone, and I cannot read them. No account, no analytics, no trackers, no ads, and no server of mine anywhere in the app.
What leaves your device, and what it contains
Five public science services are contacted. None is mine, none requires an account, and none of them ever receives a word you wrote.
| Route | What is sent | Why | Who can access it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your letters | Nothing — they are never uploaded | — | Only you |
| iCloud sync (optional) | Your letters, encrypted in transit and at rest | To sync your own devices | Only you, via your Apple account |
| SIMBAD (CDS, Strasbourg) | A distance in light-years | To find a real star | Public catalogue query |
| hips2fits (CDS, Strasbourg) | Sky coordinates | To fetch the telescope photograph | Public image service |
| sunrise-sunset.org | Approximate latitude and longitude | When it gets fully dark | Public service |
| MET Norway | Approximate latitude and longitude, rounded to four decimals (about 10 m) | Tonight's cloud cover | Norwegian Meteorological Institute |
| NIST Randomness Beacon | Nothing — it is a plain read | To timestamp a sealed letter | Public beacon |
| App purchase | Handled entirely by Apple | — | Apple; I receive no personal data |
| Support email | Whatever you choose to write | To answer you | Me, for answering you only |
Location
Requested at kilometre accuracy, only at the moment there is actually a star to report, and never at launch. It is used to work out when your star clears the horizon. It is not stored and it is not linked to you. If you refuse it, you can type a town name instead and the app works the same.
No accounts, no servers
Starward has no login, no cloud of its own, and no way for anyone but you to read a letter. There is nothing of yours for me to lose, because I never have it.
Notifications
Only for letters you sealed to your future self, delivered on the date you chose. The notification never contains the letter's words, because a lock screen shows them to whoever is holding the phone.
Children
Starward is not directed at children.
Deleting everything
Delete the app and your letters go with it. If iCloud sync was on, clear the app's data in Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage.
Changes
If this policy ever changes, the new version appears here with a new effective date.
Effective date: 6 August 2026
Terms of use
Starward is sold under Apple's Standard EULA. These notes supplement it:
- What it is: a place to write, and an astronomer's answer to where that year's light is now. It is not therapy, counselling, or medical treatment, and it makes no health claims.
- What it never claims: that anyone receives your letter, that your phone sends words into space, or that the dead can reply.
- Your words, your property: everything you write belongs to you, and the free export exists so that stays true in practice.
- Pricing: the app is free. Starward Observatory is a single one-time purchase — no subscription, nothing renews.
- Astronomical data: supplied by third-party public catalogues and provided as they provide it. Distances carry real measurement uncertainty, which the app shows rather than hides.
- iCloud: sync depends on Apple's iCloud service and your account; outages there are outside my control.
- Contact: karolisvalatka0@gmail.com
Where the sky comes from
This app makes use of the SIMBAD database and the Aladin sky atlas, operated at CDS, Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory, France. Sky images from the PanSTARRS DR1 survey, and from 2MASS for stars too far south for it, both via the CDS hips2fits service. 2MASS is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and IPAC/Caltech, funded by NASA and the NSF. Twilight times from sunrise-sunset.org. Cloud cover from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, used under CC BY 4.0. Public randomness from the NIST Randomness Beacon.